Rattling the Bones Read online

  ‘They told me so. She told me so.’

  ‘Who did, Edna?’

  Edna’s mind had moved on. She leaned forward confidentially and whispered, ‘There’s such a nice young girl in the bed over there but she’s had everything out.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ protested Ganesh. ‘If the conversation is going to be about women’s insides I’m leaving.’

  ‘Edna,’ I persisted. ‘I’m not interested in any of your fellow patients. Who told you about going back to the hostel?’

  ‘That girl who helps run the place, Nikki, she’s called. She was here today. I think it was today.’ Edna frowned and pursed her lips, chasing the elusive scrap of memory, trying to fit it into the timetable. She gave up and concentrated on something nearer and more solid. She patted the pocket to check the chocolate was still there and smiled happily.

  ‘Did she bring the dressing gown?’

  Edna looked down at the dressing gown as if she hadn’t paid much attention to it before and smoothed the surface experimentally. ‘I suppose she did. Can’t remember. She’s all right as those charity people go. I don’t hold with charities much. A charity took my cats.’ Her air of goodwill faded. She leaned forward. ‘I don’t forget my cats!’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ muttered Ganesh beside me.

  Edna fished the chocolate from the pocket and studied it. ‘I’ll keep the wrapping paper,’ she said. ‘It’s pretty.’ She stuffed the bar away again.

  ‘Edna,’ I began carefully, ‘this accident you had in the street . . .’

  ‘I didn’t have any accident!’ she snapped. ‘He ran me down, or he tried to run me down.’

  ‘I believe you, Edna, honestly I do. Can you remember whether you were distracted by anything or anyone just before it happened?’

  She turned her gaze on me with a disconcerting alertness. ‘Like what, dear?’

  ‘I don’t want to put ideas into your head,’ I explained. ‘I just would appreciate it if you’d think back over the - the incident from the moment you decided to cross the road.’

  ‘There was nothing,’ said Edna, sullen now. ‘There were people on the pavement on both sides but nothing in the road until that bike came roaring out of nowhere.’

  Ganesh, ever loyal even though he hadn’t a clue what I was up to, leaned forward. ‘Picture it, Edna. An empty road, you . . .’

  Edna raised a wrinkled finger and pointed it at him. ‘Not just me, no. There was a youngster who crossed just before me. He didn’t get run down, did he? He went strolling across like he’d got all the time in the world, with his eyes fixed on one of those mobile phone things. If anyone had been run down, it should have been him. He wasn’t looking to left or right. He couldn’t have seen anything, anyway. He’d got the hood of his jacket pulled right up over his head. It wasn’t raining.’

  ‘Thank you, Edna,’ I said. ‘They call them hoodies, those kids who like that fashion.’

  Ganesh gave me a funny look.

  ‘Fashion . . .’ mumbled Edna in disgust. ‘That’s not fashion. I remember when we had fashion. Pencil skirts. You had to have a nice little waist and we wore proper foundation garments. Matching belts and shoes and gloves. My sister had pretty party dresses, lots of stiffened petticoats. I used to watch her getting ready to go and meet her young man. She wore sheer stockings with seams up the back, if she could get ’em. Are my seams straight, Edna? They were expensive and if you did lay your hands on a good pair or two you looked after them. None of this throwaway nonsense. If you got a ladder in your stockings you took them to a special shop where they mended them. The girls used to sit in the shop working on it and you could see them from the street, through the windows. The work couldn’t have done their eyesight any good.’

  Her voice had been growing drowsier and she closed her eyes.

  Ganesh was fidgeting. ‘Come on, Fran,’ he muttered, ‘she’s roaming down memory lane and getting lost doing it, by the sound of it. She’s all of a muddle - you won’t get any more sense out of her. Not that we got much before.’

  We took our leave, although I don’t know whether she realised it or had already fallen asleep.

  I checked on the way out with the nurse to make sure Edna really was going back to the hostel the next morning.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘We kept her in to run some tests, but everything seems fine. I understand someone from the hostel where she lives will be collecting her in the morning.’

  ‘Did her visitor from the hostel bring that nice dressing gown?’

  ‘I think she must have done,’ said the nurse. ‘I wasn’t on shift at the time.’

  ‘What was all that about whether she was distracted before she started to cross the road?’ asked Ganesh, as I’d known he would.

  ‘Just trying to get a clear picture of what happened,’ I told him. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  I was grateful to him. I’d still not told him of my close encounter with the motorcyclist, but he’d chipped in to help me get what I wanted from Edna, even so.

  ‘You’ll never get a clear picture of anything from her. Not unless she’s rabbiting on about some bygone time when girls mended their stockings, for crying out loud,’ he observed.

  I said nothing because I was running it all through my head. I’d never known Edna so loquacious and I put it down to whatever pills they were giving her. But had she told me anything of interest, apart from the sighting of the hooded youth? I had a feeling she had but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

  ‘Good of the hostel to shell out for a dressing gown for the old bat,’ said Ganesh a bit later.

  That roused me. ‘The hostel worker may have brought it in. I’d bet a pound to a penny the hostel didn’t buy it. The place is run on a shoestring. They feed everyone there on beans and vegetables. That dressing gown cost money.’

  And it was the sort of thing a clothes-conscious woman like Jessica Davis would buy.

  ‘Clothes,’ I said. ‘For more years than any of us knows Edna has worn cast-off bits and pieces she’s got from charities and goodness knows where else. So why should she care so much about fashion or the lack of it nowadays?’

  ‘She’s old and potty,’ said Ganesh. ‘She was sane once, I suppose. She remembers something of those days. Old people always remember the past. It’s nothing to worry about.’

  But I had a feeling it was. ‘Damn,’ I said. ‘I should have asked that nurse how many other visitors Edna had today.’

  It was getting late as we made our way homeward but the day was far from over yet. We took the Edgware branch of the Northern Line. I said goodbye to Ganesh at Camden Town and got off the train. It pulled out carrying him on to Chalk Farm, the nearer station for the shop.

  I sometimes feel that the whole world meets at Camden Town Tube station. Some people would argue in favour of Oxford Circus being the nation’s rendezvous but the people I know favour Camden Town.

  That is why I wasn’t particularly surprised, when I emerged into Camden High Street, to see Les Hooper lumbering down the pavement towards me with the grace of a hippo escaped from Regent’s Park Zoo.

  That didn’t mean Les wasn’t surprised to see me. Dismayed might be the better term. He stopped, looked about him helplessly, and clearly would have turned and run if it would have helped. All he could manage was to stand there flapping his shovel-sized hands and looking miserable.

  ‘Hi, Les,’ I said. ‘Just the bloke I wanted to see.’

  ‘Oh, ’ullo, darling,’ he returned hoarsely. ‘What do you want me for? It’s not about that poor sod, Duane, is it? ’Cos I don’t know nothing.’

  ‘Sure you do, Les,’ I said smoothly, linking my arm through his, an action causing him further alarm. ‘Come on, let’s go and have a drink.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he began, trying to disentangle himself from me without actually shaking me off. But, like Bonnie, when I’ve got a grip I don’t let go easily.

  ‘Come on,’ I interrupted cheerfully. ‘I’m sure you
never say no to a pint, Les. My shout.’

  ‘It’s not that . . .’ he began as I towed him along the pavement. ‘It’s the rozzers.’

  ‘Police?’ I asked sharply. ‘Have they been to speak to you?’

  ‘Yes, they bloody have,’ said Les unhappily. ‘Not just your regular couple of pigs, either, but a smart-mouthed woman inspector.’

  ‘Inspector Morgan?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. Here, are you on her payroll or what?’

  He stopped and a weight like that isn’t easily budged so I had to stop too, but I didn’t release his arm. His small reddened eyes were peering down at me suspiciously.

  ‘No, I’m not!’ I snapped. ‘I’m no kind of grass, Les!’

  I must have looked my outrage because he became shame-faced and muttered, ‘Didn’t think you was.’

  We resumed our uneven progress and entered the first pub we came to. Les seemed to rally when his meaty paw encircled a pint glass and he visibly relaxed. Pubs were his milieu. He probably had mates here who’d help him out if things got awkward. I noticed we gathered a couple of curious stares. They probably weren’t used to Les coming in here with a woman or, at least, not one like me. I’d bought myself a soft drink because I was on business and needed my wits about me.

  Les had seen the stares, too. ‘They think it looks funny, you and me,’ he muttered.

  ‘Perhaps they’ll think I’m your daughter, Les,’ I told him kindly.

  ‘If I ’ad a daughter,’ retorted Les, ‘I hope she wouldn’t dress like you. I never did fancy women in boots. I like high heels on a woman, suits her. Shows her legs off.’

  Why is it, I felt like asking him, that middle-aged scruffs with a beer gut like Les, liked their women to dress to the nines but made not the slightest effort themselves? Why, in addition, did they think that glamorous fashion-conscious women would be interested in them? I didn’t ask partly because I didn’t want to alienate Les any further. I wanted information from him. Not that an ego like his was easily dented. But mostly I didn’t ask him because he wouldn’t have understood the question. Les probably sincerely considered himself a gift to the female of the species.

  The pub was filling up and the noise level rising. I didn’t want to shout so was forced to snuggle closer to speak in his ear. It probably looked very cosy to the regulars up at the bar.

  ‘Now, Les,’ I began. ‘I’m not a copper. You can talk to me.’

  ‘You’re a copper’s mate,’ he said, edging away. ‘Everyone knows you’re pally with that woman inspector, even if you ain’t her eyes and ears.’ He lifted the glass so that he held it between us like a demarcation line. ‘I ain’t got anything to talk to you about, girl.’

  ‘I’m not even a copper’s mate. You want reminding who I am? I’m the patsy who was left to find the body, remember now?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me!’ he said promptly and buried his face in the glass.

  I waited until even he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t now drained. ‘I don’t like being used like that, Les.’

  ‘No, well, you wouldn’t . . .’ he agreed unhappily and signalled to the bar.

  I knew what the signal meant. Help!

  The barman was there in a flash. ‘Need another, Les?’ He scooped up the glass and gave me a warning look.

  ‘Er, yus, same again,’ Les muttered.

  ‘What about your lady friend?’ asked the barman, ‘or is she just leaving?’

  I leaned forward and met the barman’s gaze. ‘No, she isn’t,’ I said. ‘And Les is big enough to look after himself, right? I’m fine with the drink I’ve got.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, she’s all right,’ muttered the hapless Les, now as red as a beetroot.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said the barman and departed.

  ‘What do you want to do that for?’ growled Les. ‘Embarrassing me like that?’

  ‘Come off it, Les!’ I told him. ‘Just answer my questions and I’ll be out of here. You can sit here for the rest of the night and with luck you might even meet a woman wearing stiletto heels. But talking of embarrassing situations, let’s get back to the one I found myself in when I stumbled over Duane Gardner, as dead as a dodo with a bruise on the back of his head and a socking great needle puncture in his arm.’

  A fresh pint appeared before Les and the barman whisked away back to his bar before he had to make eye contact with either of us.

  ‘As Gawd is my witness,’ said Les pitifully, ‘I never knew anything like that was going down, honest.’

  Bingo! So he did know something and I was ready to bet a pound to a penny it had to do with the set of office keys he held - or had held. Susie had surely taken them back into safe keeping or got the locks changed by now and declined to supply him with a new set.

  I patted his arm in commiseration and he was so sunk in self-pity he didn’t even recoil. ‘No, Les, of course you didn’t.’

  ‘Old Duane was a mate,’ snuffled Les, getting lachrymose. He hadn’t had time to drink much with me but I doubted the pint I’d bought him had been the first of the day. ‘And we worked together, didn’t we? He trusted me.’

  More fool Duane, but there, that wasn’t his problem now. ‘And anyway,’ Les was saying, ‘I can’t be getting into anything like that, can I? I can’t have the cops coming round my place and acting like they think I’m up to my neck in something.’ Now he leaned towards me and I got a blast of beery breath. ‘See, between you and me, darling, I got form.’

  ‘Have you, Les?’ I asked, all innocent surprise, as if I’d never suspected.

  ‘Only old stuff !’ he hastened to insist. ‘I got into a bit of trouble when I was younger. Like kids do, you know. But the cops they never forget, like bleeding elephants they are. They got everything on their records. Use computers these days. It’s no use telling them that any trouble you got in when you were a kid was just larking about, being silly. They act like a bloke’s a criminal.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’ I had an idea that Les’s description of youngsters ‘larking about’ was a pretty liberal interpretation of events.

  ‘Oh, nuffin’ heavy,’ Les urged. ‘I used to hang round with my mates on match days, we’d go out looking for the other teams’ supporters and jump on ’em. A bit of a punch-up, you know. They gave as good as they got. A few times there was a bit of crowd trouble inside the grounds, up in the stands, and I happened to be in the middle of it, just by bad luck. But like I said, it was years ago.’

  So here I sat with an ageing ex-football hooligan with a record of convictions for affray and assault. Well, I wasn’t interested in ancient history, just the very recent sort.

  ‘So what happened about the keys, Les?’ I asked in a kindly tone as used by Sister Mary Joseph when a six-year-old limped in from the playground with bloodied knees. (Whatever the explanation it was inevitably followed by: ‘Ah, well, it’s your own fault then, so it is. Let it be a lesson to you. Now sit down and stop squalling.’)

  ‘Did you lend them to someone?’ I coaxed.

  ‘No!’ His voice rose in a horrified squawk attracting more curious looks from the regulars. ‘No,’ he repeated in lower tones but just as vehemently. ‘I never lent ’em to no one. But I did, well, mislay ’em for twenty-four hours. I found them again, mind you.’

  I invited him to tell me about it. He extracted a promise from me not to tell Susie. I think he was more frightened of Susie than of the police. He wouldn’t be getting too much work from Lottie now and he couldn’t afford to lose another employer.

  ‘Where was this and when?’ I asked.

  ‘It was just a bit of bad luck, not my fault nor nothing. These things happen and I put it right. I got ’em back.’ He frowned. ‘I hadn’t used them for a couple of days but they were in my coat pocket, or I thought they were. You know I recognised old Duane from your description of him. You also know that with Susie not having any work for me, I had to go out looking to see if anyone else had a job for me. Eventually I got out to Teddington.
I didn’t go to the house. It was getting late. I knew where Duane did his drinking so I went there - and found him. I told him about you asking around about him. He was grateful, like I said. He bought me a whisky.’

  Here Les gazed a little resentfully at the beer glass.

  ‘And the keys?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It was hot in there, that place where he was drinking. So I took off my coat and just hung it over the back of my chair. I reckon what happened was, the keys fell out of my pocket then and they musta landed on the floor. Only I didn’t know, did I? I didn’t see them lying there because it wasn’t very well lit. I wouldn’t have heard ’em fall because of all the chatter going on round us. It’s a poncey sort of place, all dim lights and fancy food if you want a bite. No sausage and beans, just cass-oo-let.’